“Dried Mango”: Taiwan’s Fiercely Democratic Young Voters

Abstract

This short piece looks at the phenomenon of the “feeling of losing one’s country” (nicknamed “dried mango”) in Taiwan’s 2020 election and how it facilitated the Democratic Progressive Party in winning re-election by securing the support of young voters (typically defined as those under thirty). Previously, the fear of a change in the political status quo was typically used by the Kuomintang as an electoral tactic to mobilise its hardcore supporters. Yet, with the threat from a more assertive China, there emerged a reversal in partisanship. Taiwan’s voters under the age of thirty grew up without the experience of authoritarian rule, and they embraced democratic values more closely, which made them value political liberties more than their parents’ generation.